


Here and Nowhere Else

by lionofsounis



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Book 6: Return of the Thief (Queen's Thief), Spoilers for Book 6: Return of the Thief (Queen's Thief), be the comet fluff writer you want to see in the world, t for language but the whole thing is so tame lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28036914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionofsounis/pseuds/lionofsounis
Summary: "Kamet?""Hm?""What would you do, if you could do anything?"***After everything's blown over, (Eugenides makes) Costis and Kamet take some much needed time off and have a much needed conversation about the future.
Relationships: Kamet/Costis Ormentiedes
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	Here and Nowhere Else

**Author's Note:**

> I just thought we all needed some more gay fluff you know?

When Costis came to see me, I was pondering how I could like a man that was so frustrating. I had been thinking about the king, but when I heard Costis’s knock, I supposed the same could be applied to him.

Costis does not think he has much in common with the king, and would have especially balked at that comparison, but to say that Costis, as dear as he is, didn’t irritate me every single day would have been a lie. Today, for example, I was irritated that it was nearly eleven o’clock and he was just coming to see me now.

I called for him to come in and he did so. “What sort of a time do you call this?” I said, with an arched eyebrow.

He was unperturbed. “About eleven, I’d say.”

I harrumphed.

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding as though he was. “I went to see the king. Did you need me for something?” He settled into the chair opposite me.

I shook my head and went back to staring out the window. I had no reason to want to see him except that I wanted to see him. I could feel him watching me. My inability to come up with a witty response to his question was bound to worry him.

“Kamet, are you alright?”

I sighed and looked over at him. He was staring at me with his brow furrowed, earnest, as he always was, and concerned. I sighed again. I have learned my lesson about lying to Costis, so I said, “I don’t know.” The wrinkle between his eyebrows deepened. “There’s nothing wrong with me, if that’s what you mean. I just feel…” I searched for the word and came up with nothing. I settled on “strange”, but it didn’t really fit.

Costis frowned thoughtfully at me for another moment, then nodded as if he understood. “I think the word you’re looking for is bored.”

I looked at him sharply. “Oh? And when did you become a mind reader?”

“I’m hardly a mind reader if you couldn’t think of the word,” he said, smiling. I scowled. “I just know you so very well.”

That was true. It was a constant source of delight and chagrin for me. “All right,” I admitted. “Perhaps I am bored. I’ve never had nothing to do before. Well, hardly ever.”

Costis was nodding. “That’s why I went to see the king.”

“And what did he say?”

Costis made a face, and sighed as well. He stretched out his long legs and slumped a little in his chair. “He told me that I should rest, that he would order me to rest if I didn’t listen to him, that under no circumstances would he, the queen, Teleus or Orutus give me any order that said otherwise, that I didn’t need to be useful every second I was awake, and to stop bothering him about it.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“It was not the first time I’ve spoken to him.”

I sat silently for a moment, then admitted, “he told me much the same.” I had been indignant when he did, but as Costis had spoken, I had found myself agreeing with everything: yes, Costis deserved to rest, and the king was right to tell him so, and I was glad the king had recruited the help of the queen and anyone else who might order Costis around.

How strange that loving someone else makes one see how we ought to treat ourselves. I would not expect of Costis what I expect of myself, and yet I only see the injustice of it through his eyes.

“Ah,” said Costis.

“Indeed.”

“I suppose we must be content with being useless then,” Costis said.

I did not foresee that happening for either of us.

“We have already _been_ useless,” I complained, though I knew I shouldn’t. “We have been doing nothing but sleeping in sheep shit for weeks.”

Costis looked exasperated. “I can’t keep on apologizing for that.”

I gave him a look that unsettled him not at all.

“You’ll get bored,” he said by way of explanation.

“I already _am_ bored,” I huffed. The truth was I would have preferred to forget about the sheep shit entirely, but I could not, and so I found myself bringing it up over and over again. “We are neither of us very good at being useless. The king ought to know it.”

“He _does_ know it.”

“Then he should give us something to do.”

“Maybe we still smell like sheep shit and he’s too polite to say so.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “The king isn’t polite.”

Costis laughed too. “No. And he would most certainly tell us if we smelled like shit.”

“It was the first thing he said to me!” I exclaimed.

Costis laughed harder. “Not the _first_ thing.”

“Yes, you’re right. He kissed my forehead, said ‘my gods, I am glad you are not dead’, and then said, ‘you smell like sheep.’” Costis laughed more and more as I continued complaining, so naturally I continued. “I notice he did not tell _you_ the same.”

“I am sure I smelled the same as you.”

“Yet he felt no need to point it out.”

“Maybe I always smell like shit.”

“Or lion piss.”

Costis was trying to be deeply offended, but he was still chuckling. “I can’t keep apologizing for that either.”

It was difficult to think of things to complain about with Costis’s deep laugh still ringing in my ears. “No,” I said thoughtfully. “It is I who must apologize.”

Costis still looked amused, but puzzled as well. “What hideous sin have you committed lately?”

Bless him, I thought, he doesn’t even know he should be annoyed at me. “It is not fair to continue complaining about all the times you have saved my life. I would be dead a hundred times over if not for you.”

“A hundred seems excessive,” Costis pointed out.

I snorted.

“Well,” Costis said comfortably, “so would I without you.”

I snorted again, louder.

“I would,” he insisted. “I can list them if you like.”

“Oh, let’s not start that.” I waved the comment aside with my hand. If he started listing times I had saved him, then I would have to start listing times he had saved me to prove that my list was longer, and then we might be at it all afternoon.

“It would give us something to do.”

“I’m sure we can come up with something less tedious.”

“We could go pester the king again. Perhaps if we both go at the same time –”

“Perhaps if we both go at the same time, he’ll have us arrested again. No, thank you.”

“That’s not fair. Teleus arrested us, not the king.”

I rolled my eyes. As if it made a difference. “That is entirely irrelevant.”

We lapsed into companionable silence. After some time, Costis spoke again. “Kamet?”

“Hm?”

“What would you do, if you could do anything?”

I blinked, and before I could answer, Costis hastily added, “I don’t mean now, because you’re bored. I mean, in general.”

His explanation confused me more than his original question had. “What you mean, ‘in general’?”

“Well, I mean, the whole time I’ve known you, we’ve been trying not to get killed by the Medes, or trying not to let Attolia get invaded by the Medes. What are you going to do now?”

I hadn’t the faintest idea. In some respects, I hadn’t really thought about it. I intended to stay in Attolia, or wherever Costis was, that much I’d known, but I hadn’t really come up with any ideas as to what I would _do_ in Attolia. I suppose I had assumed the king would find some useful employment for me. But it had been weeks and he had said nothing.

“I –” I began, then stopped. “I don’t know, Costis. I thought the king might have something for me to do, but now…” I trailed off, shaking my head.

“What about –” Costis frowned, as if unsure how to say what it was he was trying to say. “What if there was no king?”

I gave him a confused, and slightly alarmed expression. “Costis, are you planning on assassinating your king?” I was joking, of course, but I was worried he might be considering something equally insane.

“After all the work I’ve put into keeping him alive? Don’t be ridiculous. No, I mean, what if the king never asks you to do anything? He wanted you to be free, Kamet, and you are. Even if he does ask you to stay, you are free to refuse, to make your own choices. What would you choose to do if you could do anything?”

“I… I don’t know,” I said again. “I never thought – well, I thought about it. But whenever I ask myself about it, I can’t seem to come up with an answer.”

Costis seemed unsettled by this. He was staring at me with even greater concern than when he’d first walked in and found me staring vacantly out the window. He leaned forward in his chair so that he could look me in the face. Our chairs were close enough together that I could see the different shades of brown in his eyes. “Kamet,” he said, very carefully. I did not like his very careful voice. He only used it when he was afraid, and he was rarely afraid. “Do you want to stay in Attolia?”

I do not know what I was expecting him to say, but it was not that. I looked at him sharply. “Do I want to stay in Attolia?” I repeated, unsure why I was suddenly so angry.

“I need to know,” he said, his voice firmer, but still careful. He still looked afraid, and I found I did not care for that at all. I realized with a jolt that he was afraid of me. Of what I might say. I think I was angry at myself for making him afraid.

“After everything we have done to get back here, you are uncertain that I would want to stay?” My voice rose.

I expected him to pull back, but he did not, so I began to scoot my chair backwards. He grabbed it by the arms and stopped my progress. At another time I would have been both impressed and annoyed that he could hold both myself and the heavy chair seemingly without any effort at all, but I could still see the fear in his eyes, and so I could not think of anything else. “I need to know that if you stay it is your choice,” he said.

Something clicked together in my mind, like a puzzle piece falling into place. I could not have explained it, but I found some of my anger leaching away even as I snapped at him. “What?”

“Kamet, you said I saved you many times, but the same is true for me as well. We are even.” It looked as though it pained him to say it.

“Even?” I echoed. It pained me to hear it. We were not even, of course, but that wasn’t the painful part.

Costis went on relentlessly, looking no happier to be speaking than I was to be hearing him. “You do not need to stay in Attolia because of me. Because you owe me. You are a free man, and you are free to go where you wish. And I would –” he stopped. Cleared his throat. “I would go with you if you wished –”

My anger disappeared entirely, and I understood both my and his unhappiness. I took my hands off the arms of my chair. The tension left my body so quickly that I felt liquid, buoyed up on a sea of contentment.

“—Or not, if you did not wish.” Costis made to continue, but I had put my hands over his, gently hinting that he might let go of the chair – I would not pull away again.

“Oh,” I interrupted, understanding all. “Oh, my Costis, no. No, no.” I said it three times, as if it might become more true with each repetition. “I have no wish to leave Attolia.”

His face was still pained, his jaw set in anguish. He did not believe me. Only when I reached up and laid a hand to his cheek did his expression begin to soften. “I have no wish to leave _you,”_ I said.

“You can though –” he began.

“Oh, shut up.” His mouth snapped shut. I lifted my other hand to his face, and smoothed a wayward curl back from his forehead. “Costis, you dear, stupid man. Whatever would I do without you?”

“Anything you like,” he said promptly.

“I do not know what I would _like_ to do,” I said, slowly. It was true. I knew I liked to read, and to write, and to be useful, and I liked Attolia, I truly did. However, I did not have the faintest idea how I might spend my time here. “But I do know what I would _not_ like to do, and that is to be anywhere you are not.” I added, somewhat loftily, “I have tried it already, and I did not care for it.”

Finally, Costis let out the breath he’d been holding. “Are you sure?”

“I have never been surer of anything.”

“I can be very irritating, you know.” It was the first time Costis had smiled in several minutes.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I retorted. “We both know which of us is more irritating.”

Costis smiled even broader and did not argue. “Well, you are not the one making us sleep in sheep dung and lions’ dens.”

“I thought we agreed to stop talking about that?”

“So,” Costis conceded. After a pause, he said, “and you are sure you want to stay in Attolia?” I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic, but he continued, his voice still soft, though less guarded than it had been. “Because I would go with you. Anywhere you wanted. If you would have me.”

“Costis,” I said, because I did not know what else to say. Rather than think of something, I kissed him on the lips. We had done so before, of course, but this felt different somehow. We had known each other, had loved each other, for a long time, but until now I had not known how it felt to be so thoroughly and truly understood.

“Costis,” I said again when we parted, leaning our foreheads together, “I would have you here, and nowhere else.”

He smiled again, and I kissed him once more.

***

The next day, the king, as if he knew what had passed between Costis and I, reinstated Costis in the guard, and gave me a position working alongside Orutus. He came to my room to ask us himself – he seemed to know Costis would be there – and winked at us as he left.

“Grace of all the gods preserve me,” Costis muttered, dragging a hand across his face. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave Attolia?”

“You never would,” I replied, laughing.

“I would if you asked,” he insisted.

I gave him my most winning smile. “I would never be so cruel.”

“Aagh,” he said.


End file.
